To paraphrase the headline, there is no serious investment because the tourists do not come. The city mayor’s counselor Yaroslav Kozak is convinced it is time to break this vicious circle: Lviv has 2000 architectural monuments capable of striking anyone. Moreover, Lviv residents can rely on a special feature of the Western tourist mentality — they practice kind of a sport: to visit as many countries and cities as possible. And Lviv is terra incognita to them.
However, it turns out there are not so many European-standard hotels in Lviv. Of course, the Dnister was urgently renovated on the eve of the summit, but this does not solve the problems. Mr. Kozak is confident that Lviv could do at first with small family- type hotels, which do not require big investment, and they run a minimum risk of being unoccupied. However, hotels also face rather specific problems. What is particular for Lviv is that this city imposes one of the heftiest hotel duties in Ukraine: 20%. This is a local tax, so it is quite realistic to cut it. That this can give a positive result the city authorities made sure on the example of the Suputnyk, the hotel that served the summit participants. The city council allowed its administration to lower the hotel duty to 5%. This resulted in the reduced room charges and increased occupancy. But there is still a problem to be solved at the national level: in this country, hotel daily charges for foreigners are twice as high as for Ukrainian citizens. Manager of the Trident tourist firm, Iryna Mala, told
The Day’s correspondent that her employees find it difficult to explain to foreign customers the reason for this discrimination.
Even small Western towns hold quite well-known festivals and contests which in turn draw a huge number of tourists to these towns. Some attempts have also been made in Lviv, but various festivals quietly die out after just a few years of existence. It would be more effective if they were not only regularly held but also entered into travel catalogues in timely fashion. This is not realistic thus far. According to Ms. Mala, nationwide advertisement of Lviv could help establish it as an international tourist center. The inclusion of Lviv in the UNESCO worldwide heritage list is only the first step in this direction.
